c1922 Panorama of Port Orford

In celebration of Port Orford’s 175th year, we are identifying the buildings in this 1922 gigapixel panoramic image restored by John Heida in 2022.

To gain an appreciation for the amount of work that went into this digital restoration, the originals that the artist worked from are provided below.

Below are some additional historic photos of Port Orford that Alan Mitchell and Rick Cook have started identifying buildings in. This will help inform the research of the gigapixel restored by John Heida. All of this research is work in progress, so bookmark this page and check back as we map the history and provide details about what is seen in each photo.

1. Unknown. Looks like a cute small house, never seen reference to it.
2. Unknown. Look like an outbuilding, never seen reference to it.
3. Masterson House – Built in 1898 by Peter (Pehr) Johan Lindberg for Patrick Masterson and his wife Alice, daughter of Patrick and Jane Hughes of Sixes River.
4. Masterson’s Boarding House
5. Masterson’s Barn
6. Unknown.  Look like an outbuilding, never seen reference to it.
7. Nielsen/Fromm Building – Tucker’s Market. I have a copy of the original 1902 deed for the lot. Nels Nielsen bought the lot from Tichenor’s daughter. Nels built the store by 1904/1905. Pat Masterson refers to the building as the Nielsen building at least twice.
8. Western Hotel
9. Crawford Store -The Crawford Store was built circa 1880. Its original owner was Allen Wolcott, who also served as Port Orford postmaster. In 1884 Andrew Crawford bought the building. Crawford’s sister Mary, married local Robert Marsh, father of A. J. Marsh. After Crawford’s death in 1892, the store changed hands many times. Owners and operators include William Kerr, Pacific Furniture and Lumber Co., McKenzie and Poole, Ames Johnston and John R. Miller. In 1903, P. J. Lindberg built a large warehouse behind the main store for PF&L Co. Patrick Masterson believed the current main structure of the Shoreline is what remains of the original taller two story Crawford Store.
10. Knapp Hotel

11. “Bills Place.” Burns in 1934. CA Long’s Mercantile store is just beyond. You can just see the “C” in Long’s name painted on the side of his building. Long’s store is after 1930. This helps date the photo as after 1930, pre-1934. 
12. Leneve Building – Loggers’ Poolhall ? Burns in 1934
13. Winsor (Bennett) Hotel
14. Dress shop.
15. Telephone Building.  Was there ever a Mexican restaurant in WT White’s old Telephone building? The news article below is dated 1934. The tele building also had the chamber of commerce and hair salon. I don’t think the Mexican restaurant lasted all that long?

16. “Marsh Station”. This might help date the photo too. You can see the gas pumps and signs. John moves the station to McPhillamy house about 1932. Does this date this photo 1932-34? By the late 1930’s the building became “The Club”. I’m not sure when the Marsh station becomes the Club. Marsh still owns it in the mid 1930’s. The photo circa 1940 shows it has a sign “The Club”. I think Mrs. Crew started “The Club”, but don’t know for sure. She owned the building in the mid 40’s
17. Maybe it belonged to Bennett at one time.  I do know Charles W. Zumwalt owned it in the 30’s and probably earlier. Did a quick check up on that Zumwalt house behind Logger’s poolhall.  It looks like they owned the house but didn’t live there. They are out at Sixes. Maybe Magnolia White lived there with her husband Marion Zumwalt. She divorced him by 1930.
18. Obadiah Leneve owned this building when this photo was taken. I have an unproven theory that by 1925/26 when William J. Paulman opened the Loggers’ Poolhall, Leneve had already moved into or built #18. I think this building is the later Leneve Drug Store. It also housed the early Port Orford Library and Port Orford Women’s Club meetings. As I research, I keep my eyes open for proof of my theory. I would make a small wager that I am correct. By the mid 1940’s, the Quicks owned this building.
19. WT White home – A Sears Roebuck kit-built home.

1. Crawford/Kerr/Miller store, built ca.1880
2. Bates House built 1879. Earlier photos show a smaller second story house and rear section. Becomes Marsh gas station and bus stop.
3. Asa Carmen’s Old Corner Saloon. Asa bought the house from the Tichenors in 1872*.
4. Blacklock/Masterson Store, built in the 1870’s, burnt down in 1902.
5. George and Maude Forty House 
6. Knapp Hotel, built after the fire of 1868.
7. Centennial Building, built in 1876 by or for Louis Knapp Sr.
8. Unknown
9. Nels Nielsen Blacksmith Shop. Nielsen was originally a blacksmith. He and his wife, Mary Alice Nielsen, were two of Port Orford’s leading late 19th and early 20th century entrepreneurs. In 1904 Nielsen Built his store across the street from the shop. He rented  to another blacksmith after moving into his new storefront. 
10. Future “Bill’s Place” Bill Bennett’s Store
11. Leneve Drug Store and Hall
12. Unknown
13. Unknown
14. Winsor Hotel, Built by or for William Winsor* in the late eighteen hundreds. Bill Bennett buys the hotel in 1921. 
15. Zumwalt Barn according to Patrick Masterson.
16. Zumwalt House, Lived in by Zumwalts but used as a rental for the most part.
17. Unknown, probably a barn.
18. Unknown
* Footnotes ~ Asa Carmen’s Saloon, I believe this structure is a possible candidate for being the original Tichenor house, built in 1853. The original Tichenor house blew down, due to a storm, in 1914. A newspaper report claims the Tichenor’s lived in their house till their deaths in the 1880s. I believe the paper could be wrong.
William Tichenor, known as the town founder. After the Rogue Wars, the government hired William as a bounty hunter. He cruelly hunted Indigenous people who were fleeing removal from their homeland. He is responsible for the deaths of many captives as he marched them north.
Winsor Hotel, William Winsor participated in the Skookum House battle on the Rogue River. He led the raid on the Tu-tu-tin village, where Lobster Creek meets the Rogue. The big rock at the creek’s mouth is known as Massacre Rock. I am friends with descendants of survivors. I feel obligated to make this comment.

(PLEASE NOTE ♪ The buildings in the photos above and below are still being identified and the numbering does not relate to the numbers provided in the previous two photos.)

See also Rick Cook’s Port Orford Historic Buildings and Sites Database for information on the history of known buildings in Port Orford (🎵 ~ the database dates the panoramic photo as c1924, based on Willis white house being built in 1923/24 and the Marsh station was built in 1925. It’s not in the panorama).

Also check out our Photo Notes section for research in progress of Port Orford Historical Photos.